I’m not a guitar amp nut; I have little appreciation for old-and-moldy audio components and purist babble (oh yes, I know! “Vacuum tubes! Blah blah blah!”) But a look at the promo video for Positive Grid’s new Bias iPad app has even me drooling.

The acute irony of creating vacuum-tube tonal quality on digital circuitry aside, Bias looks like the kind of audio engineering app filled with options that can easily seduce one into diving in and exploring its audio wizardry.

Here’s a list of swappable ingredients, straight from the press release: “preamp tube types, edit preamp voicing, adjust bias, audition various transformer types, swap out loudspeakers and cabinets, move microphone placement and much, much more.” Not satisfied with your own concoction? Log in to the cloud and download amps created by others.

And yes, Bias is apparently able to replicate “a complete virtual collection of the most coveted and unique guitar amps of all time–some dating as far back as the 1940s,” though how well is not the subject of this post.

As expected of a serious musician’s tool, Bias is Audiobus compatible, and can mix with other Audiobus-compatible apps. On the hardware side, it integrates with Griffin’s StudioConnect and GuitarConnect Pro.

About the only downside is $20 — or that may be an upside, considering the app’s abundance of options and that its contemporaries are the same price anyway.

About the author:

When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path — which explains why he's Cult of Mac's test editor-at-large. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of Wired.com and BIKE Magazine, among others. Hang with him on Twitter.